Here’s what happens when you let art run feral: it starts raiding charity shops for medieval literature, collecting roadkill as performance art, and treating late-night televangelists as cultural theorists. At least, that’s the lesson Cosmorat are teaching us, one beautifully bizarre swerve at a time.
Most bands build their aesthetic from carefully selected influences, like they’re assembling furniture from a flatpack, surrounded by step-by-step numbered instructions to create something that fits the trends of the here and now. Cosmorat, meanwhile, appear to be constructing theirs from whatever treasures they discover in their late-night wanderings, guided only by the haunting sounds of mysterious woodland French horn players and the ghostly glow of discontinued street lighting.
The result is less a by-the-numbers band and more a self-contained cultural ecosystem, one where high and low art collapse into each other until the distinction becomes meaningless. “I’m comparing several copies of Dante’s Inferno off of eBay to find which translation I like best,” explains Trae, embarking on what turns out to be a surprisingly detailed literary expedition, “but also to get a copy that has the Gustav Dore illustrations, although those only seem to exist with Cary’s translation, which I have read is harder to understand. Guess we will see. I got both.”
This isn’t the careful name-dropping of someone trying to prove their intellectual credentials – it’s the excited rambling of a genuine enthusiast who’s found their latest obsession. The same energy powers their approach to band dynamics. When asked about their roles, Trae offers what might be 2025’s most gloriously direct band bio: “I collect the roadkill, Olly cooks the roadkill.”
It’s this kind of comment that makes other band interviews feel hopelessly inadequate. While their contemporaries discuss production techniques or playlist algorithms, Cosmorat are out there turning deceased wildlife into both musical dinner and artistic statement. There’s something wonderfully pure about it – the sense that every decision, no matter how odd it might appear from the outside, comes from a place of genuine curiosity.
The band’s existence has been brief but dense with the kind of details you couldn’t manufacture if you tried. “Cosmorat as an idea has existed for like a year,” Trae explains, though they’ve been making music with Olly “and with other people for a while.” In that short time, they’ve managed to build their own cultural universe – one that operates on dream logic and treats every random encounter as potential artistic fodder.
“I collect the roadkill, Olly cooks the roadkill”
Their rise has been swift enough to land them on festival stages, though their relationship with success remains refreshingly oblique. “I try really hard to not know what people think of me,” Trae admits. “It’s embarrassing to know. We got to play Leeds Fest, so it must’ve been alright.” In an industry obsessed with metrics and social media engagement, there’s something wholesomely admirable about this studied indifference to reception.
Their latest single ‘Be Like Me’ emerged from the strangest of cultural intersections, where lockdown-era content diving meets inherited religious camp. “If Vic Berger is reading this,” Trae begins, “you are responsible for filling my lockdown with hours of edited footage of Jim Bakker.” Before they add, with perfect timing: “If my grandma is reading this from beyond the grave, you are responsible for passing down your love of campy, culty religious figures.”
The track serves as what they describe as an interlude, though calling it that feels like calling a fever dream a quick nap. “This is not the direction in which future projects are headed,” Trae notes. “This waking up in the middle of the night at 7 years old and turning on the TV to an infomercial. Half asleep, half awake, not really sure if these people are real people or an extension of your lucid dreams.”
It’s the perfect encapsulation of Cosmorat’s approach to art – that blurry space between reality and dreams, where everything feels slightly off-kilter but somehow makes perfect sense. Their creative wellspring draws from the most unexpected corners of existence, turning urban infrastructure into both inspiration and political statement.
“Those sodium lamps that are monochromatic and are no longer in use,” Trae muses. “I imagine what it would be like to go back to those instead of the harsh LEDs everything has been replaced with.” This launches them into an unexpected policy proposal that somehow makes perfect sense in Cosmorat’s world: “Stop investing in wars and start investing in making a less hazardous sodium street lamp. Bring back the constant hum.”
The band also have an unofficial collaborator, who sounds like a character from the world’s most niche ghost story. They’re “the person that practices the French horn at night in the woods near me,” Trae reveals. “It’s like I’m being haunted by the bitter ghost of a classical musician that never got to be First Chair for Siegfried Horn Call in The Ring Cycle.”
This spectral presence has shaped their ideal recording environment, informing an approach to production that feels more like method acting than music making. “I just want everything to sound like it’s in a barn with the door open,” they explain, “with the subtle chatter of drunkards leaving the bar in the distance.” It’s the kind of specific vision that makes most producers’ carefully curated studio setups seem hopelessly inadequate – why book an expensive studio when you could just set up near a particularly vocal pub?
“I just want everything to sound like it’s in a barn with the door open with the subtle chatter of drunkards leaving the bar in the distance”
When asked about future plans, Trae maintains their commitment to the unconventional: “To go back home and buy more ironic t-shirts from Goodwill.” The conversation then takes an unexpected detour through deer field dressing techniques (don’t ask) before landing on what might be the most practical piece of advice in the entire interview: “The shortcut to turn on/off Countoff in Pro Tools is Numeric Pad 8.” It’s perfectly Cosmorat – jumping from charity shop fashion to wildlife preparation to music production shortcuts without missing a beat.
What emerges is a portrait of a band building an alternative way of engaging with art and culture – one where the boundaries between high and low, intentional and accidental, profound and ridiculous cease to matter. Instead of carefully cultivating their ‘brand’ or chasing the latest TikTok trends, Cosmorat are out there getting lost in literature, documenting the nocturnal habits of woodland musicians, and turning their finds into something that feels genuinely new – even if some of it is roadkill. It’s what you make of it that counts.
Cosmorat play Dork’s Here Comes Your Jan series tonight (23rd January) at London’s 100 Club. Their new track ‘Be Like Me’ is out now.
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